At a time when sustainability is a key to future societal progress it can be questioned whether the injection of toxic chemicals into the underground should be allowed, or whether it should be banned as such a practice would restrict or exclude any later use of the contaminated layer e.g. for geothermal purposes and as long-term effects have yet to be investigated. In an active shale gas extraction area, about 0.1-0.5 litres of chemicals are injected per square metre. An unavoidable impact of shale gas and tight oil extraction is a high land occupation; possible impacts are air emissions of pollutants, groundwater contamination due to uncontrolled gas or fluid flows due to blowouts or spills, leaking fracturing fluid, and uncontrolled waste water discharge. Fracturing fluids contain hazardous substances, and flow-back in addition contains heavy metals and radioactive materials from the deposit. Currently there is a poor regulatory framework surrounding ‘fracking’ and it should be assessed whether the use of toxic chemicals for injection should be banned in general. At least, all chemicals to be used should be disclosed publicly, the number of allowed chemicals should be restricted and its use should be closely monitored. Shale gas will be an important part of Australia’s energy future but given historic high well decline rates and poor regulation and oversight as well as environmental problems the precautionary approach should be used to ensure that negative impacts can be minimised and managed.

I think we are being very short-sighted and economically lazy to opt for coal-seam or shale gas. Like the Malaysian 'solution', it almost looks good but is merely postponing a day of reckoning.
Geothermal is all but ready to provide base load power. Some push/pull from governments and corporations, and is there enough potential in Tasmania to power Victoria?
It true, why don't we go there?

Is Graham Young and OLO being paid a commission for this long investment advertisement (including links)?

No less than four direct claims for credit for foreseeing the geopolitical implications of our fossil fuel dependency and the entry of shale gas, and the whole is predicated on nothing more than seducing well-healed subscribers to an amoral feeding frenzy--though to be fair, he does include, between ellipses, "...mitigate climate change...". I wonder what the whole quote was? Certainly if shale gas lives up to the author's greedy expectations, it can have only the opposite to a mitigating effect on climate change, keeping the whole saturnalia going!
Like all economists I've encountered, this one is as heartless as the rest, tacitly condemning middle Eastern countries for "trying to buy compliance" (perhaps he'd prefer the riff raff be put down with bullets), while salivating over the money to be made from its failure.
Ah the irony, that the rapacious US led juggernaut that bestrides the world, presiding over unprecedented inequities, on and offshore, might be saved at the death by an act of God (shale gas).
What offends me most--and there's a lot to offend the senses in his dung heap of an article (that is, advertisement)--is the obvious Schadenfreude the scapegrace proffers at the concomitant demise of oil-rich nations. I'm sure the average wealthy investor will also get a kick out of it; profiting at the expense of the Arabs, I mean--not a bad marketing pitch to throw at the conservative classes in OZ!

Halduell, when some enterprising company, generate at their own cost, without tax payer subsidies, geothermal power, & supply it to south east Queensland, I promise I'll buy it, even at a small premium.

If anyone wants my taxes to subsidise their power generation, by direct subsides, or a carbon dioxide tax to force BS costs on our existing power, I'll fight it for ever.

Squeers, I am so glad I don't inhabit your world. It must be a thoroughly awful place to live.

Hasbeen:
<Squeers, I am so glad I don't inhabit your world. It must be a thoroughly awful place to live>

Ditto!

Fracking isn't the only technology in play here. One likely big player is the use of super critical carbon dioxide as a solvent, presuriser and pore-filling replacement for the recovery of oil from otherwise unviable deposits. As well as extracting the oil, the SCCD diffuses into the rock mass, sequestering itself in the process. It doesn't have any tendency to dissolve the water-soluble inorganic minerals and it won't contaminate aquifers, other than perhaps adding a small amount of dissolved carbonate. There is no waste-water problem with this technology.

As well as the benefit of improved recovery in marginal fields, it gets rid of a huge amount of CO2. At present, the same techniques are done using water or nitrogen. CO2 sequestration could prove the thing to make the use of SCCD a competitive alternative.